BRIDGE

It's very easy to make five diamonds on this deal if you see all four hands. After East-West cash two spades, you win the rest of the tricks by drawing trump and cashing the K-A of clubs. When West's queen falls, your jack becomes a trick, and that's that.

But in real life, you have no way of knowing at the outset that the queen will fall. You might very well take a club finesse somewhere along the line and go down one.

However, declarer should make the contract even if he lacks X-ray vision. And he can do this without benefit of a peek at the opponents' cards.

Assume West leads the A-7 of spades. East wins and returns the heart jack at trick three. Declarer wins, ruffs a heart with the diamond jack, leads a trump to the nine and ruffs dummy's last heart with the king.

He then plays the A-10 of diamonds, overtaking with dummy's queen, and cashes a fourth round of trump to produce this position:

When the last trump is led from dummy, East must part with a club to prevent South's six of spades from becoming a trick. Declarer thereupon discards his spade and plays the king and another club. After East follows low, it is a simple matter to put up the ace and drop West's queen, since the last card in East's hand is known to be the king of spades.